I live in a town that owns it’s own power and water sources. It also has a fiber loop that could easily be adapted to provide high speed internet services to businesses and households. When the town started making noises like it might do just that, Comcast and others created an astro-turf ‘group’ that opposed the town’s interest in being an actual ‘smart’ city. They spent over a quarter of million dollars (this is a smallish town; less than 100K people) to get the local population to vote against it.

The first time this happened (in the mid 2000’s), they succeeded. The second time (last year) they failed. Now, the city council is visiting places like Chattanooga Tn. to see what a gigbit to the home network can create. They are impressed, and I am very hopeful our little town here will become one of the dozen or so cities that actually has real broadband services available, to all.